


It Blooms

by spaceleviathan



Series: I Am Talking About Evil [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Abuse, Additional Warnings Apply, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 20:45:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13819110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceleviathan/pseuds/spaceleviathan
Summary: Harleen's got a date with 4 lucky contenders: Her psychiatrist, her best friend, her new beau, and the mysterious figure all in black.





	It Blooms

Harleen’s appointment with her new psychiatrist, the kind but confused Dr Deller, went like this: Harley was fifteen minutes late, Deller was thirty, and together they realised that Harley was somehow functioning in at least one aspect of her life despite debilitating illness. Lucky for capitalism and all the lovely men and women in Arkham, Harley’s entire ability to function had been forcibly channelled towards her job.

She told Deller, “Well, it’s no hardship. I’m mentally ill, and so are the patients.” It sounded like it shouldn’t work, even as she said it, but truly there was no better way to connect than compare dysfunctions. She admitted, “I forget what red flags are sometimes. Self-harm’s an outlet, so let’s get it out! If something’s that bad, why do they have to keep it in?”

Which was why she was here, she told Deller. “Maybe I’m not functioning so great at work, either.”

Her main problem areas, work notwithstanding, included her home-life. “I forget, y’know. To do laundry, to cook, to consider my electricity bill. I’ll leave the lights on all night, then I gotta pay an arm an’ a leg, and it’s just stupid.”

“What are your relationships like?”

“Yeah, I guess I should talk to you about that one too,” because she’d always struggled; keeping people in her space was suffocating, and sometimes there were already too many noises in a one-person house.

Deller had been concerned about Harley’s lack of friends. “Oh, I got my dogs. They’re beautiful. Huge things, god knows what breed, not sure if they’re actually dogs, y’know? Rescued ‘em from a shelter a coupl’a years ago.”

“Harley, what do you want to talk about?”

“How about that guy in the news! The guy at the chemical plant? Apparently some poor bastard was there late and the Batman shoved him into a great big vat full of junk. Not that I think he did it, you’ve seen what the media is like with Batman, right? They _hate_ him-“

“Why that story?”

“I dunno. They haven’t found a body yet. They said they should have at least found a scrap of him.”

“Do you not like thinking about your own problems, and instead focus on others?”

“Isn’t that _everyone’s_ problem, doc? We delve into fantasy, we fixate on the news, we indulge ourselves in the messed up lives of celebrities, all because we don’t want to face our own messes? No, I don’t want to think about my diagnosis, ‘cos it’s never the same.”

“I’d like to work with you a big longer. Figure out what medication is more appropriate for your symptoms as they arise.”

“Wanna give me something that’ll help me to work on time?” she joked. “I’m on antipsychotics at the moment.”

“For schizophrenia, yes.”

“I’m not schizophrenic.”

“Why do you take the medication then?” Deller asked, and Harley shrugged.

“I’m hear things, sometimes. Can be a drip of a tap; like water torture, you know, _drip drip drip_ , all the time. I think they help, then.”

Deller had nodded. Run through the standard tests, _do you experience things_ _that aren’t there, do you sometimes feel sad for no reason_ , and let Harley go an hour after she’d arrived.

“See ya next week?”

Harley switched on the news when she got home, hugged her monster dogs, Bud and Lou, and re-watched the story of the man who’d disappeared, seemingly due to the Batman.

“He wouldn’t,” she told her dogs, as she’d told anyone who would listen. “Bats is a good guy. He’s helping the crime rate.”

Harley would like him to help the crime rate, anyway. Working in Arkham, and with her own shortcomings, she’d decided against moving out of the Narrows. She hadn’t even bothered to move apartments from when she was a student dreaming of something better. After this many years, she figured if she hadn’t already been murdered by now she was probably in one of the safer neighbourhoods. She had her dogs who’d growl at the barest high wind anyway, so it wasn’t like anyone could sneak in.

Maybe it was wishful thinking, but she found herself further soothed by the idea there was a big ol’ bat flying around and scaring the bejeesus out of petty crooks. She’d give it to the madman, he certainly didn’t do anything by half.

\-------------------

At work, she had a steady stream of patients, and she made sure to see each at least every three days. A few needed daily therapy, and a few less were even making progress. It was hard to administer help to people who didn’t want it, and she was thankful she wasn’t the one making sure the patients had swallowed their medication.

The halls were gloomy, full of long echoes and far off screaming, and hid nothing from the doctors or the other patients. If Harley strained her ears, she reckoned she could hear the noise from the canteen on the other side of the building. She liked it here; she never felt alone. All she needed now was a couple of beds for her dogs, and she might as well move in.

Occasionally, if she’d get lost in a research paper or fascinated by the medical and criminal history of a new patient, Harley found herself walking alone in the dark. There was little point having a car in the Narrows, which were too densely packed together and difficult to navigate by foot, never mind with a great honking vehicle. Also, there was no safe place to put it when you weren’t using it, so ultimately Harley kept a pair of flats on hand and trekked to and from the hospital. This was not always the safest idea.

Harley would tell her psychiatrist, who would worry about a trauma Harley refused to acknowledge, that she had been cornered by some grinning idiot, and threatened with a knife. They’d managed to catch her neck, which she’d start to joke was a ‘shaving accident’, before the Batman had grabbed him by the collar and hoisted him up and out of sight, straight over the rooftops of the Narrow’s tall buildings. Harley had been left, gaping and bleeding, alone in the street, which was, she considered, marginally better than not-alone with a maybe-murderer, but less better than not-alone with the Batman. Deller privately thought alone was better than either of them.

Harley got home with the help of a man with dark hair and green eyes, who pressed his thumb on her wound and asked her if she was ok.

“Just completely petrified,” she answered with a smile. She smiled back, concerned, a little startled. Harley was used to that last one, less used to the former. She told him what happened as she clutched his arm and kept on refusing to call any sort of authority, or take a visit to Gotham General. “It’s just a scratch, I went to medical school. I can probably handle it.”

“What about shock?”

“Nothing some good hard liquor won’t handle.”

“I don’t think-“ but upon her insistence he had left her to it, giving her a number, telling her to call if she needed anything.

Harley called Pamela, instead. Got three words out before Pamela hung up, not before snapping, "I'm _working_ , Harley. I'll call you back." Harley waited. Pamela called back in just under a minute.

“You should stop just hanging up on me, just ‘cos it’s me,” she complained. “What if I have something important to say?”

“What do you mean you got stabbed?” Pamela demanded.

“Yeah, exactly! I got backed into an alley. It’s not like its serious, but it smarts something awful.”

“A stabbing isn’t serious?”

“Well maybe _stab_ is a slight exaggeration.”

Pamela had grilled her for details, before sighing and telling Harley that she was a complete buffoon. “I know that,” Harley replied. Pamela hung up again soon after, sighing about Harley wasting her time, but the fact she’d been even a little bit concerned made Harley smile. Pamela was a hard cookie to crack, but inside she was made of delicious gooey stuff.

She ended up leaving late again the next day, but had since had time to process. She felt okay, despite co-workers offering to help her get back or telling her that she had to leave before sunset. She probably wound up waiting until all the working streetlights turned on out of spite. She wasn’t going to examine it too closely.

What she ended up fixating on, instead, was the fact that Batman had saved her last night. And Batman, being the reliable sort of nightmare creature that she had always known he was, would do it again.

She found herself home safely that night, through luck rather than any caution on her part, just to find a gentleman waiting at her door, with his green eyes and dark hair, and a startled expression.

“Oh! I- I, uh, I haven’t been here waiting for you- I just thought, I just-“

She thought it was sweet, because he was biting his lip and looking mortified at his own actions, and she found herself forgiving him for showing up unexpectedly at the door of a complete stranger. “You wanna come in for a drink?” She offered. “Not the hard liquor, that’s reserved for nights when I gotta be saved by a man in a bat costume.”

“That’s alright, you can keep it,” he said, but did come in for coffee.

“Let the Batman guide you safely home,” she told him when he was ready to leave a couple of nice, if slightly stuttered, conversations down the line. His name was Jim, and Harley liked her new friend. “If you wanna come over, ring me next time!” She called after him.

He yelled back, “I don’t have your number!” before disappearing into the Gotham fog.

“Shit.” She said to herself. Texted, _shit, my bad_ , to his phone.

 _Use your brain, Harleen,_ he replied. _Can’t ring you if I don’t have your number_.

 _Maybe I’ll keep it secret, keep some mystery about me_.

 _JUST GIVE ME YOUR NUMBER HARLEEN_.

She left a message all about him on Pamela’s voicemail that night, since this time Pamela only let her get as far as, “Hello!”

\-------------------

There was news that the Batman was fighting _supervillains_ ; insane folk with red masks, or exploding umbrellas, or creeping vines. Harley loved watching the news, rewarding herself for getting up early by the Batman’s latest night-time exploits, laughing at the outrageous events that had befallen Gotham.

 _He’s not helping crime,_ said the critical newscasters who had never felt unsafe in their own homes, during their commute, at their jobs. _He’s escalating!_

 _Good morning_ , Jim would message her at eight, like clockwork.

“He helps me,” she told Dr Deller, like she’d told Pamela when Harley had made the perilous train journey into the city centre to accost her botanist friend during her lunch break. “He’s organised and neat and stuff. He won’t let me sleep when I ignore my alarms. He keeps ringing me ‘til he knows I’m up. I’ve been eating breakfast _before_ I leave for work.”

“That’s good,” Deller said, in a tone that almost made it not sound like a question. Harley beamed at her, a congratulations on finding the correct answer. “I’m glad you’re reaching out to new people.”

“Couldn’t do it without ya, doc.”

“How _is_ your psychiatrist?” Pamela asked when she’d gotten bored of the Jim talk, which was approximately three minutes after Harley had started.

“She’s ok. Not as good as me.”

“Any prognosis on the diagnosis?”

“It’s getting there. I think she thinks I’m bipolar.”

“You’ve been saying that for years,” Pamela pointed out. Harley shrugged.

“I don’t have many depressive episodes, it’s not my fault that they look at the available evidence and come to the most likely conclusions.”

“So this one’s an idiot then, if she thinks you’re bipolar, the way that you, who are also a psychiatrist, think you are. You, who deal with a higher rate of bipolar disorders than they do, because they’re more concerned with snivelling middle-aged middle-class people in the middle of a mid-life crisis.”

“You wanna say that three times fast?” Harley snorted. “Anyway, _no_ , I don’t know if I’m bipolar, I just thought I was way back when, and I _know_ I’m not schizophrenic, and only time will tell if my psychiatrist is an idiot.”

“You shouldn’t have to wait to get the right kind of help, Harley.”

“It doesn’t work like that, kid,” she said, glancing at the time and kissing Pamela on the forehead. “I’m gonna miss my train.”

“You’ve been here 10 minutes!”

“Well, maybe if you hadn’t wasted so much time in your stupid lab-“

“My lab is _not_ -“

A lot of their conversations ended that way.

\-------------------

“Hi!” Harley exclaimed with delight, whilst the mugger next to her babbled incoherently and began to back away.

“H-hey, stay back, man!” he said, emptying the clip at the ominous shadow that had taken up the alleyway and blubbing like a fish out of water when nothing hit. It made something electric run up Harley’s spine. _Thrilling_.

He scampered away, disarmed and terrified, whilst Batman turned his disapproving glare on Harley.

“Go home,” he ordered her, ready to pursue the pathetic attempt at a mugger, but Harley shouted him still, lashing out to grab at his arm.

“Whoa, no! Lemmi at least say thank you!”

“You’re welcome,” he said stiffly, gently prying her hand off of his glove.

“Are those _your_ muscles?” she gaped, instead of the thousand more sensible questions she could have asked. It at least worked to make him pause, reassess her, and she would have resented being looked at like maybe _she_ was the crazy one running around in a batsuit if not for the fact she had her hands all over his arm again. “Watch me home?” She asked, because the mugger was long gone, and was not worth the Batman’s time, besides.

His compromise, though he didn’t say much to argue except disappear onto the rooftops and leave her to scowl after him on the pavement, was to literally _watch_ as she walked back to her apartment. He stalked along the miles of interconnected buildings, occasionally leaping between blocks smoothly, to which she’d politely applaud. On the way, she yelled up questions, she talked in the spaces where he didn’t answer, and she startled them both when she whirled around, convinced she’d heard the click of a gun, a verbal threat up against her ear. “Sorry, I just thought-“ she said.

“Are you okay?” the Batman asked her when they got to her front door, and she reminded him absurdly of Jim. She touched him again, couldn’t seem to help it, and he didn’t stop her. He was made of leather and metal, the barest hint of a face, the smallest glint of eyes amid the darkness. “Do you have locks?”

“I have dogs,” she answered, which he quickly discovered for himself. The monsters were already jumping at the window, equally excited that she’d come home and horrified by the appearance of yet another stranger.

“Locks are safer.”

“I dunno, you’ve not met my dogs.”

He frowned at their snarling faces through her lace curtains. He looked back to Harley with a delightfully unimpressed expression. She couldn’t seem to stop grinning.

“Harleen,” she offered to shake his hand. “Quinzel.”

“You’re a doctor at Arkham.” He stated.

She nodded eagerly. “You’re sending us a lot of new inmates. Maybe tone it down, a touch?”

“Many of these people need help, not prison bars.”

“And we need more staff to keep up,” she told him, but not without delight. “But thanks.”

“For what?”

She shrugged, turning to unlock the door and glancing back to see him gone. “Everything, I guess, you ridiculous bat,” she answered to the night, and knew the night would get the message back to him.

\-------------------

Lou was acting really weird. He wasn’t a shy pup, and he always bounded gleeful around the place, but he didn’t like Jim. That wasn’t unusual, because he didn’t much like anyone who wasn’t called Harley or Bud, but he’d shown improvement since Jim had moved in. And Jim had moved in because Jim had _not_ liked being called in the middle of the night to be told that Harley had once again been attacked, this time with a gun; his blood pressure was definitely taking a turn for the worst, or so he told her.

He ended up ringing her at five o’clock each PM, telling her he was waiting outside, and if she didn’t want to get _him_ stabbed she’d better finish up quick. He would eat dinner with her, and more often than not crash on her sofa, or curl up with her in bed, and eventually just stopped leaving. Bud avoided him, which he took little issue to, because Bud was even worse than Lou. Lou stopped barking when he saw Jim at the door, which was more progress than Harley had ever hoped for. Then she stopped seeing Lou almost completely.

Jim shrugged when Harley asked him, wondering if he’d ever seen anything like that in a dog before. “Our dogs were always quiet. Nothing like your crazy things.”

“Lou’s _hiding_ ,” she told him when she found her big, scary, strong monster mutt in the corner of the bathroom, under the table in the kitchen, in as much of her closet as he could fit in. She couldn’t drag him out with anything less than promises of walks and treats.

She forced them both out one evening, when Bud had started to copy Lou and sneak away into quiet dark places, and Harley was distinctly at the end of her patience with the both of them.

“Do _not_ make me take you to the vet,” she warned them as they sniffed around the corners of seedier alleys. “’Cos I will, y’know, and that will not end well for anyone. _Especially_ that poor vet.”

Her heart lightened, however, as the long walk seemed to make them bounce again. They were yipping at every stranger that passed, and she was so delighted to hear them that she didn’t bother to apologise, even when people started crossing the road and her insane puppies began to howl for absolutely no reason.

As soon as they were home, however, with Jim exactly where she’d left him, lounged on the sofa, engrossed in some hammer horror, they disappeared back to where she’d pulled them from, and her mood plummeted straight back down, and then further.

“What the hell is wrong with them?”

“Shh,” Jim replied.

\-------------------

The latest schmuck that Batman left on their front door, this time with a little note that said: _For Dr Quinzel_ (which she told herself very sternly was _irritating_ and not outrageously adorable), was a victim of a violent home. She found herself moved in a way that this same story, told unfortunately often in these hollow walls, had never driven her to. She had to cut the session short, citing that he was still very delicate and sore (Batman may have the right ideals, but with muscles like his he would never be soft-handed) and needed some rest. She had to bite down her own tears until she was alone, turning away from the door where the orderlies led the man down the corridor, and leaning her head against the cool glass for some sort of sensation that wasn’t her own whirling emotions.

“I don’t know why it got to me so much,” she confided in Dr Deller four days later. “I had to refer him to another doctor because I couldn’t handle it. I’ve seen a hundred cases of parents hitting their kids.”

“Maybe that’s one hundred too many,” Deller replied calmly, sympathetically. “There’s a tipping point for everything, Harleen.”

“Maybe this is depression. Maybe I’m depressed.”

“You’re not depressed-“

“Hey, you can’t tell me what I’m feeling.”

“You know what depression feels like, Harleen,” Deller told her, as if she didn’t already know. “Is there something else happening in your life? Perhaps your recent attacks have made you feel more aware of the violence towards others.”

“That’d suck,” Harley pondered. “I deal almost exclusively with violent people. I’d have to quit my job.”

“Maybe we should adjust your therapy, slightly.”

Pamela thought it was Jim’ fault. “The dogs don’t like him.” She said. “There’s something wrong with him.”

“The dogs don’t like _anyone_. They don’t like you either.”

“That’s reasonable, I don’t like them. But they’ve never hidden from you.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Jim,” Harley said decisively, gathering her things and preparing to huff away.

“If all you wanted a live-in alarm clock, you could have just asked!” Pamela called after her.

\-------------------

“Did you fall?” Deller asked, and Harley nodded, showing her the impressive bruise on her arm.

“Good, huh?”

“Fall off what?” Pamela asked, and didn’t seem interested in the answer. Asked instead, “Does the Batman know where you live?”

\-------------------

She hugged her dogs whenever she found their newest hiding spots, taking them out as often as she could, but they were quiet, and she was quiet, and she fell asleep sometimes, curled up on her bedroom floor with her precious babies on either side of her, throwing a blanket over them all as if it could hide them from the world.

She watched the news on silent with them late at night, early in the morning, following the Batman as he made his way across the city, saving the people who needed saving, keeping the streets quiet and clean.

She’d stopped her extended trips home in the dark, and never walked the pups after sunset. She hadn’t seen the Batman in a long time, and hoped he still remembered her. Prayed, sometimes, that he’d drop by for a coffee, peek in through her curtains at just the right time. The hero always won in the end.

\-------------------

“Help,” She said, “Pam, help me!”

Her phone was shattered against the wall as Jim yelled, _WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING-_

“Don’t!” she said, “I didn’t- I don’t know-“

He grabbed her by the hair, flung her across the room, and she thought she’d be lucky if she could emulate her mobile phone and shatter into a thousand pieces, because that’d be the end of it.

She was sobbing, loud and ugly, begging him to stop, and he was screaming that she shut the hell up, the neighbours are going to call the cops, IS THAT WHAT SHE WANTS, and she screamed when he raised his hand, only for it to land with a thick, resounding fleshy noise on something that was not her. Still silent, except a whine that Harley had never heard from her brave dogs, Lou had stepped in front of her and was staring solidly at Jim. Bud was backing away, had been the one to get hit first, and was stepping underneath Harley’s arm. She clung to her beautiful girl, and tried to grab at Lou’s collar, get him out of the way.

“Move!” Jim yelled, unapologetically, kicking the dog in just the right way, and Harley had already known, but couldn’t bear the sight of it as he lashed out at the only two creatures in this world that deserved nothing less.

“Stop it!” she screeched, high-pitched and horrified. “Get the fuck away from them!” She wrestled them away, pushing them behind her, struggling to her feet.

Jim was still lashing out at her dogs, who were doing nothing to defend themselves, whilst Harley started hitting his chest. “Back the fuck off! Get away from my dogs!”

He grabbed her again by the roots of her hair, dragging her towards the kitchen. “Here’s what I think of your fucking dogs,” he threatened, and she knew what he was going to do even before he reached for the firearm in the drawer. She screamed, kicked him at him and hit him again and again, but couldn’t stop him as he aimed the barrel at the protective pups. They had followed her, now starting to growl lowly, ready to jump to her defence. “Don’t! Please, don’t hurt them!”

She managed to grab him, bash his elbow into his face, and she screamed loud and heartbroken when a gunshot was followed by a high yelp. “You evil fuck!” He let go of her to cradle his own face, turned towards her when she scrambled away. She grabbed the first thing in reach, and slashed at his face with her biggest kitchen knife. Once she started, she couldn’t stop. “Get away! Don’t fucking touch my dogs!”

Eventually, the noises in the house stopped, and Jim was lying in a deep red pool. Harley had followed him down when he’d fallen, and she was sitting next to him now, breathing deep, looking up only when a hesitant nose touched her blood-drenched arm.

“Bud,” she choked, then looked up and saw Lou limping towards her, bleeding from his leg. She grabbed him, and he tried to resist, but she was strong with fear. It was barely a wound, a graze, and she flung her arm around them both, sobbing anew, relieved that they’d gotten through it, that they were all alive.

A shadow enveloped them, and Harley shot up to her feet, knife still in hand, prepared to defend the three of them anew. “Fuck!” she said instead, when it was just the Batman. “You scared the _shit_ out of me. Make some noise, maybe?”

“What happened?” he asked, glancing between Harley and Jim, still on the floor, stiff and silent. There was a bullet-hole in her wall, a dropped gun half-way across the kitchen floor, and blood across three of her four walls. Her dogs were wild all of a sudden, and the Batman had to grab them by the collar, take them out of the room.

“He tried to kill my dogs!” She told him, equally as unhinged, surprised that the Batman didn’t lock her in the bedroom too. With Bud and Lou safe, though she could hear them pawing at the door, Harley felt herself let loose a breath. With it, came every ounce of rage she’d been saving up.

“That fucker there has been hitting my dogs longer than he’s been hitting me! He was smart, he was fucking _careful_ not to do it where I could see. But I knew, I knew when he started on me. What sort of monster fucking hits _dogs_.”

“Harley,” the Batman said, then again louder, grabbing her shoulders and shaking some amount of sense into her crazed head. “Harley!”

“He was hitting my dogs! He tried to shoot my dog!”

“I know,” he said. “They’re safe now.”

“Yeah! Thank you!” she exclaimed loudly, angrily, realising belatedly that the words and the delivery were incongruent. She rethought her statement, deciding she agreed with what she’d said, and repeated softer, “Thanks.”

He shook his head, his hands still on her arms. She closed her eyes, took a couple of deep breaths, and wondered where he came from.

“There was an anonymous tip of a disturbance,” he told her. “I was heading your way and I heard the gunshot.”

“ _Fucker_ ,” she said again. “He’s just lucky that Lou isn’t hurt any worse, cos then _he’d_ be hurt worse.”

“Worse than what, Harley?” Batman was looking very intense, not that he wasn’t always intense-looking, and something about it managed to filter through Harley’s fury, make her startle.

“I,” she started, stopped, looked up into the Batman’s face. He had blue eyes, she could see in her florescent kitchen light. He had beautiful blue eyes, like cornflowers. She looked down, saw the blood she had smeared over his leather and metal outfit. “Oh, god.”

Pamela burst through the door then, yelling for Harley, yelling at Batman, making almost as much racket as the dogs behind the bedroom door, but quietened when she’d taken stock of the room, catalogued every feature, new and old, made a keen observation of every splatter of blood. Saw Harley lean into Batman’s chest, crying anew in absolute silence.

“Thank god.” She said.

\-------------------

Pamela leaped into immediately into action.

Harley hadn’t let go of the Batman, gripping onto his cape every time he tried to step away, unable to stand without him, and so he had to sit down with her when Pamela had pushed her blood-stained friend onto the sofa and gone to make tea. The dogs had been let out and were sat over Harley’s feet, as close as they could and starting to sleep.

“What are you going to do?” The red-head asked him promptly whilst handing out mugs. She had one hand on her hip, glaring him down whilst she sipped one of her own brews. Harley hugged it to her chest, savouring the warmth and the soothing smell. It was something green, and strange, and almost overwhelmed the smell of blood.

Batman, usually so cool in the face of criminal activity, seemed to have absolutely no clue what to do about this. A domestic crime, with a woman he’d protected before, a woman he should have protected more. Pamela pushed, “Are you going to arrest Harley?”

“You should,” Harley said into his beautiful, solid pectorals. “You definitely should. I should turn myself in. Shit, fuck, I gotta-“

“Sit your ass _down_ ,” Pamela ordered as Harley had tried to pick herself up, dragging her mug, her dogs _and_ the Batman with her all at once. Pamela saved them all an undignified tangle of limbs when Harley didn’t disobey.

“So, what will it be?”

The Batman spent some time looking at Harley, and Harley tried to look back. She felt she should be horrified at herself, but there was a growing numbness that only allowed shame to bleed through.

“I’m sorry,” she told him with sincerity; not for what she had done, but for the position she’d put the Batman in. “I’m so sorry you couldn’t save us.”

“Because,” Pamela interrupted. “If you’re going to sit there being indecisive, I’m taking Harley home.” She kneeled down, and pried her friend’s sticky red fingers from the Batman’s cape one by one, letting Harley lean against her instead.

“Your plants will poison my dogs,” she told Pamela’s boobs, feeling Pamela sigh, run her fingers more thoroughly through her hair.

“I suppose then you’ll stab me too.”

“Pam-“

“I think I can handle you, Harleen. I can handle _you_ too, you realise.” She waited for the Batman to reply, but he was leaving the house.

“Wait,” Harley tried, weakly, not expecting anything. She was so surprised when he listened that she almost forgot to say more. He was more patient than she took him for, and eventually even looked back at her. “Please don’t leave me.”

“I’ll be keeping an eye on you, doctor,” he warned, but it sounded more like a promise.

\-------------------

The unavoidable reality of the Narrows was that it had an unreasonably high crime-rate, which meant that when a young man was found stabbed and slashed three miles from Akham Asylum, the police hardly bothered to do more than file it away. There had been more maniacs with knifes lurking in shadows than they could shake a gun at, and whilst the Batman had been doing his best to round them up, some of them always slipped through the cracks.

“Probably got mugged on the way home by some escaped loony,” Officer Heiden said, as she called his loved ones. His girlfriend, hushing her barking dogs, had said softly, “Happens all the time around here.”

Wasn’t that just the truth. “Maybe get out of the Narrows for a while,” she told the girlfriend, Harleen. “There are some weirdos around.”

“I’ve got a friend,” Harleen replied, and it gave Heiden with a small measure of relief.

She ended the conversation with a gentle, “Stay safe,” and smiled when Harleen replied, “You too officer. Thank you, for all you’ve done for the city.”

“No problem, ma’am. We’ll get to the bottom of it.” They wouldn’t, there was too much mess left to clean up, the world spiralling into madness the more the Batman tried to tighten their control, but Harleen Quinzel didn’t know that, and never would if she was lucky.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on: [Blog](http://www.space-leviathan.tumblr.com), [writing blog](http://www.spaceleviathan.tumblr.com), and [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/spaceleviathan) (come tweet me i m os lonely )


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